Five days ago, Nancy Gilbert learned she’d have an important guest at her house – along with 60 others for lunch.

“Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought I would have a vice president of the United States in my living room,” she said.

Actually, it isn’t really such a surprise that Gilbert and her husband, Mark, hosted Vice President Joe Biden for a Democratic fundraising lunch today at their Boca Raton home.

Besides being a major Democratic fundraiser, Mark Gilbert was an early, influential supporter of Barack Obama’s presidential candidacy – signing on early in 2007, when most South Florida Democrats were supporting Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

“It surprised a lot of people,” he said.

Gilbert was deliberate about the process, considering several other actual or potential Democratic candidates. He’d met Obama before 2007.

But he met with the then-Illinois senator in Washington, D.C., for about 45 minutes in February 2007 -- a week before Obama declared his candidacy.

In the taxi on the way back to his hotel, Gilbert said he called his wife and told her he was convinced Obama was the one.

He said Obama promised to campaign and govern as someone who wanted to deal with Big Issues, and “everything we talked about in that meeting he fulfilled.”

He developed a close relationship with the candidate, who now president – and was a large bundler, raising more than $500,000 for the campaign.

Gilbert, 53, a director at Barclay’s Wealth in Palm Beach, played with the Chicago White Sox in 1985.

And on Sunday, Gilbert was appointed deputy national finance chairman for the Democratic National Committee.

Mark Alan Siegel, chairman of the Palm Beach County Democratic Party, said Gilbert is known for more than his political activity. He’s a big player in the Jewish philanthropic community, Siegel said.

Staff Researcher Barbara Hijek contributed to this blog posting.

Below, more about Gilbert from the archives:

From the the April 1, 2007, Community News section of the Sun Sentinel.

By Minerva Romo and Tina De La Fe

More than 200 congregants, family and friends gathered for B'nai Torah Congregation's annual dinner dance, which coincided with the temple's celebration of Purim.

Around this time every year the synagogue honors a person or couple who has made an impact on the synagogue and the community.

This year's honorees were Nancy and Mark Gilbert, of Boca Raton.

The Gilberts, both originally from Pennsylvania, have been attending the synagogue since they moved to Boca Raton 22 years ago.

"We walked through the doors when our second daughter was born and we needed a place to have her named, and we never walked out," Nancy Gilbert said.

"It was natural for Mark and Nancy to be selected this year because of their top level of service," said Stephen Lippy, the temple's executive director.

Mark Gilbert served three terms as temple president and 12 years as a board member. He also led the major gifts committee for seven years and the budget and finance committee for five years, Lippy said.

The Gilberts are a high-powered couple. Nancy owns The Masorti Travel Bureau/Travels and Dialogues, which coordinates tours to Israel. She developed the itinerary of the first trip of what is now known as Birthright Israel, an organization that arranges free trips to Israel for first-time visiting Jewish students ages 18 to 25.

Mark is a senior vice president at Lehman Brothers and played Major League baseball with the Chicago White Sox in 1985.

From the Dec. 23, 1992 Sports Section in the Chicago Tribune:

By Jerome Holtzman

It was the night before the night before Christmas, and Santa Claus here didn't want to forget any of his former baseball acquaintances. Suddenly, out of the blue, he remembered Mark Gilbert, a fleet center-fielder who had a cup of coffee with the 1985 White Sox - seven games. 22 at-bats, a .273 average.
Some ballplayers get lost in the fog of time. I don't recall if Gilbert batted right- or left-handed (turns out he was a switch hitter.)

Some things I do remember: Connie Mack, in 1919, invited Mark's grandfather, who was a pitcher, to try out for the Philadelphia A's; and Joel Weisman, the WGN political pundit, who is a friend of mine, was also among Mark's Chicago friends.

But most of all, I have not forgotten that Mark told me: His eight years in the minors were worth it because, having been called up by the White Sox, his name would be in the "Baseball Encyclopedia." I understood: indisputable evidence of baseball immortality.

Santa here, with the help of his reindeers, etc., descended on the home of Mark Gilbert. Down the chimney he went, and there Gilbert was, sitting at the fire with his wife, Nancy, and their two children, living happily in their home in Boca Raton, Fla.

I had not seen nor spoken to him since he left the White Sox, but I knew what my first question would be: Had he seen himself in the encyclopedia? Page 943, between Larry Gilbert, an outfielder with the 1914-15 Red Sox, and infielder Pete Gilbert, who played in the 1890s with the Baltimore Orioles.
Terrible disappointment. Mark never bought the encyclopedia. But he did have one of the thin updated pamphlets, the annual or biannual addenda to the main encyclopedia, a hefty work that weighs four or five pounds.

More disappointment. They got his birthday wrong. He was born Aug. 22, 1956, not Aug. 2 as listed. One of his friends, Ben Walker, of New York, a baseball writer with the Associated Press, said he would call the editors and advise them of the mistake. The correction has not yet been made.

On with his life. "I think everybody thought I would flip out after I was told I couldn't play anymore," he said. "I didn't. I had played 22 straight years of organized baseball, since I was 7. I had had enough. I would have continued playing if I hadn't hurt my knee. But I was looking forward to doing something else."

Had the experience of competitive sports given him an edge?
"People ask me that a lot," he said. "I don't know if it was my competitive makeup that made me a better athlete or if being an athlete made me a better competitor."

And, of course, he has vivid recollections of his brief stay with the White Sox. He played in seven big-league games, all in succession, from Sunday through Saturday.

"My first at-bat was against Jamie Easterly, when he was with Cleveland, a left-handed pitcher," he said. "The week before, in the previous series, he had hit three of our players.

"I hit a line-drive to right-center on a 3-and-2 pitch. I thought it was a double. Brett Butler made a diving catch."

He had six hits, one for extra bases. "I was facing Dennis Martinez with the bases loaded and hit a line-drive past (first baseman) Eddie Murray. I thought it was a triple, but the ball got stuck in the padding, in the cushions in the right-field corner. It ended up a two-run double. They sent the runner back to third and me back to second."

I asked if he ever hit a fence.

"In the big leagues, only on defense," he said, amused. "Juan Agosto was pitching. Fred Lynn hit one over my head. I caught it as I went into the fence.
Not my whole body. Just my foot."

He was 2 for 4 in his last game with the Sox. "I knocked in our only run of the game," he said. "But we lost. I think the score was 9-1."

Gilbert was recalled from the Sox's Buffalo farm team in late July, a replacement for Rudy Law, who had gone on the disabled list. He was up for 15 days.

His big-league career came to an end on Aug. 4, on a Sunday afternoon when Tom Seaver won his 300th game. The next day, the players went on a two-day strike. Gilbert was sent back to Buffalo and never returned. He underwent surgery the following February.

"That's when the doctor told me I should try something sitting down for a living," he said.

He took the doctor's advice. Ever since he has been a stockbroker with Goldman, Sachs & Co. out of their Miami office.

Was it worth it?

"Absolutely. Everywhere I played I had fun," he said. "The most impressive thing being with the White Sox was how congenial everybody was. Carlton Fisk. Harold Baines. Tom Seaver. They were all superstars. Yet they were extremely nice to me and tried to help me as much as they could. No question. It was worth it."

Santa went back up the chimney whence he came: "Onward Donner, onward Blitzen. Up, up and away!"

Comments

how much you wanna bet Gilbert is connected with that piece of scum fundraiser Dr. Mendelsohn from Hollywood? These scum dirtbag fundraisers run in the same circles. It's all about being connected for money and power.

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Broward County is an unusually rich territory for political news. The Broward Politics blog is devoted to the politicians, the activists, the parties, the policies, the issues, the elections - in the county and its communities.

ANTHONY MAN is the Sun Sentinel’s political writer. Concentrating on local political people, parties and trends, he also covers state and national politics from a South Florida perspective. He's coordinating the Broward Politics blog with contributions from reporters throughout the county. Before moving to the Broward political beat, he covered politics and Palm Beach County government for the Sun-Sentinel, including touch-screen voting and the Supervisor of Elections Office. He's also covered municipal, county, state, and federal elections and made repeated reporting trips to Tallahassee for regular and special sessions of the Florida Legislature. He joined the Sun-Sentinel in 2002 after covering state and local politics in Illinois. Like so many others in South Florida, he's originally from a New York suburb (Rockland County).

BRITTANY WALLMAN covers Broward County and news. A 1991 University of Florida graduate, Wallman started her journalism career at the Fort Myers News Press. She and her husband Bob Norman have two young children -- Creed and Lily. Wallman was born in Iowa and spent half her childhood there, the remainder in Oklahoma. She has covered local government and elections her entire reporting career -- including covering the infamous 2000 recount here in the presidential election. (She has a Mason jar with a "hanging chad'' inside to prove it.)

LARRY BARSZEWSKI covers Fort Lauderdale and Wilton Manors. In the past, he has reported on Palm Beach County government and schools, aging and social issues, Pompano Beach, Deerfield Beach and state legislative sessions. He wrote for the Denver Post, Bradenton Herald and Miami Herald before joining the Sun Sentinel in 1988. A Massachusetts native, he lives in Boca Raton with his wife, Maggie, and teenage daughters Jessica and Jackie.